In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with Urvashi Vaid who has been a leader in the LGBT and social justice movements for nearly three decades. Urvashi is being honored by GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders) with the Spirit of Justice Award on October 24th at Boston Marriott Copley Place. Vaid has made change for our LGBT community through her leadership of numerous LGBT organizations. Most recently she founded LPAC the first lesbian political action committee and her writings have advanced our LGBT movement to be expansive in its thinking and inclusive in its work. We talked to Urvashi about the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court recently denying review of marriage equality cases and her spin on our LGBT issues.
When asked what she would like to see happen for LGBT equality in the next few years Vaid stated, “I would really like us to do two things. One is to take care of the parts of our community that are less powerful. That means low-income LGBT people, transgender people and our community’s women whose rights are getting the crap kicked out of them. Parts of our community across the board, kids, old gay people, parts of our community who are less powerful than middle or upper class professionals like me. For our organizations, donors, our foundations, our media outlets to focus the spotlight and focus their work on the full parts of our community. The second thing I would love to see happen is for the LGBT community to use its political power and access to create a more just society for all. We have done a great job advancing and pulling together and that kind of unity that got us to this point, I would like to see it sustain over the next few years so we can use that power that we’ve been organizing to push back some of the rightwing policies in this country and to push for a more inclusive and just society which really is the queer vision. LGBT people vote more progressive in general. LGBT people care about the environment. We care about leaving a better world for our children and for future generations. Those sets of values that we have of compassion, community building, of caring, of stepping up and shouldering responsibility which we have shown again and again, I hope are the qualities that will guide our movement in the coming years.”
Urvashi Vaid is a graduate of Vassar College and Northeastern University School of Law. She is currently Director of the Engaging Tradition Project at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. In 2012 Vaid authored “Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and The Assumptions of LGBT Politics” published by Magnus Books. On October 24th she will receive the prestigious GLAD’s Spirit of Justice Award at their annual fundraising dinner event in Boston, Massachusetts.
For More Info & Tix: glad.org
Urvashi is fantastic. Her remarks are brilliant, inspiring and sends a message of hope that equal rights are for all people. Thank you for this interview, Charlotte.
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